Vs. Cravan

he official opening of the VS. CRAVAN project, curated by Elisabetta Longari, will take place on Thursday, 29th November 2018, at 18.00 in ARCI Bellezza’s Visconti Gym in Milan - under the patronage of Milan City Council – and will focus on the relationship between boxing and art.
VS. CRAVAN is presented to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of the artist-boxer Arthur Cravan and is being celebrated in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of this famous gym previously known as ‘La Lombarda’, where Luchino Visconti shot Rocco e i suoi fratelli, and now called Palestra Visconti belonging to the ARCI Bellezza Club, a famous old workmen’s meeting place in Milan.

The evening will mark the official opening of the VS. CRAVAN exhibition, curated by Elisabetta Longari, featuring works by Ivo Bonacorsi, Petr Bystrov, Mimmo Capurso, Luigi Castiglioni, Gianluigi Colin, Andrea Contin, Nino Crociani, Franko B, Andrea Galvani, Cesare Fullone, Omar Hassan, Elena Kovylina, Mimmo Lombezzi, Antonio Marras, Paul Pfeiffer, Camilla Rocchi, Michael Rotondi, Riiko Sakkinen, Arianna Summo, Giovanni Testori and Maria Cristina Vimercati, which will run through to 6th December.

It will be followed by a conversation about Arthur Cravan and the relationship between art and boxing involving Milan City Council’s Councillor for Culture Filippo Del Corno, the curator Elisabetta Longari, the president of ARCI Bellezza Maso Notarianni, the boxer and writer Fabio Pennetta, the art critic Michele Robecchi,and the artist Ivo Bonacorsi.
It will continue with a performance by Patrizio Fariselli, a solo pianist and keyboard player for AREA, who will be playing on the piano that used to belong to the legendary Capolinea Club in Milan, which has now been rediscovered, restored and brought back to life in Palestra Visconti belonging to Bellezza.
The evening will draw to a close with a free showing of Luchino Visconti’s film Rocco e i suoi fratelli,
which, poignantly, is being shown in the same locations where it was filmed.
Following in the footsteps of the legendary Arthur Cravan - a poet and boxer who was idolised by Dada artists and Surrealists and who passed away 100 years ago this year – VS. CRAVAN revolves around a sequence of different events, including performances, discussions, music, film and works of art by both contemporary artists and artists of the past on display in an ideal location inside what used to be Pugilistica Lombarda’s boxing gym and is now known as Palestra Visconti belonging to ARCI Bellezza Club in Milan. This is where Luchino Visconti shot the boxing scenes for his film Rocco e i suoi fratellidrawing inspiration from the Il ponte della Ghisolfa collection of short stories by Giovanni Testori, a writer and artist whose paintings on boxing are also being exhibited.
   
The evening of the 29th November will begin with Andrea Contin’s performance of VERSUS: a boxing match involving three boxers from Boxe Popolare, a sports club, whose social aims and purposes are similar to ARCI Bellezza’s. As in the first version of 2002 in Artericambi Gallery in Verona, they will all be fighting against each other with Contin also acting as the ring announcer and Michele Robecchi as the referee.
This live performance dialogues with other works on display: a partial reconstruction using some of the old props (designer punchbag, drawings and video projections) of Ivo Bonacorsi’s performance dedicated to Arthur Cravan that took place on 5th October 2005:  Left Left Right, a sporting-musical interlude of great political poignance by Petr Bystrov; the incredible pictures of Palestra Visconti in the Seventy by Mimmo Capurso; some famous old posters of fights from the 1970s by Luigi Castiglioni: a tribute to Primo Carnera – Italy’s only world heavyweight boxing in history - by his fellow Friulan, Gianluigi Colin; one of a number of paintings about boxing by Nino Crociani; a metaphor for blood and milk in a projection of a performance by Franko B; Cesare Fullone’s pain-ridden apparitions; the evocative documentation of Versus made by Andrea Galvani; the shrine to boxing by the artist-boxer Omar Hassan; a documentary video of Elena Kovylina’s powerful piece called ‘Boxing’ - a symbolic and rather raw work focusing on gender differences; Mimmo Lombezzi’s rough and rugged boxers; AntonioMarras’s elegant visions; the disturbing vanishing presences in Paul Pfeiffer’s video installation; fragments from a heart-felt account of the ring by Camilla Rocchi; the fluid and textured vision in Michael Rotondi canvases: Riiko Sakkinen’s brilliant, socially-engaged drawings; the trailer for Boxe populaire by Arianna Summo; the famous boxers’ bodies painted by Giovanni Testori; and a photographic account of famous boxing locations by Maria Cristina Vimercati that is full of pathos.

Just as VS. CRAVAN is something more than just an art exhibition because it highlights the deep connections between boxing, art and life, so the publication accompanying the project is anything but a standard catalogue and is much more like a self-produced, cyclostyled fanzine containing different types of documents, such as reprints of old photos, writings from the past and the work notes of the artists involved, as well as reproductions of the works on display.
 
Our thanks go to Milan City Council for its patronage, BIG Broker Insurance Group / CiaccioArte, the artists taking part, speakers, boxers from Boxe Popolare, Simone Falso for his film shots and photos of VERSUS, Gaetano Castellini Curiel for their support, Carla Conti, Francesco Pandian from Arte & Ricambi in Verona, Giò Marconi, Massimo Minini, Andrea Sassi from Arte & Ricambi in Berlin, Valentina Tortorella and Alain Toubas from Compagnia del Disegno for loaning out the works on display.
The exhibition is dedicated to Stefano Cucchi, who loved boxing.
 
EVENING SCHEDULE
- Opening of the Vs. Cravan exhibition
- performance of VERSUS by Andrea Contin, featuring boxers from Boxe Popolare
- conversation about Arthur Cravan with Filippo Del Corno (Milan City Council’s Councillor of Culture), Elisabetta Longari (curator), Maso Notarianni (President of ARCI Bellezza), Fabio Pennetta (boxer and writer), Michele Robecchi (art critic), Ivo Bonacorsi (artist)
- piano playing by Patrizio Fariselli (solo pianist and keyboard plyer for AREA)
- projection of the film Rocco e i suoi fratelli directed by Luchino Visconti (free entry)

Vai alla guida d'arte di Milan